Locations

The HZI is continuously building a network of closely aligned strategic partnerships with universities, research institutions and hospitals. Its primary objective is to create synergies which establish the optimal conditions for an efficient transfer of knowledge from basic research to medical application: HZI Locations.

The Strategy of the HZI

Learn more about how the HZI, with its translational focus, will help to facilitate a faster and more targeted approach when it comes to fighting and preventing existing, emerging or recurring infectious diseases.

Working at the HZI

Around 900 employees in research, administration and infrastructure, and about 220 visiting scientists from 40 different countries are employed at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research. To ensure top quality research we need top quality employees. Your creativity and innovative capabilities are the basis for the long-term success of our work. That's why we undertake a great deal to attract the best people to us. Learn more about this.

Feature

Systems BiologyThe goal of systems biology is to describe the dynamic processes of life and of biological systems using mathematical models. In line with the foundation of the new Braunschweig Integrated Centre of Systems Biology (BRICS) we have compiled some background information about systems biology for you: To the systems biology feature.

The body’s own cells can be used to fight a number of rather serious diseases. For instance, physicians are using stem cells obtained from the patients’ or a healthy donor’s blood to treat leukemia. Culturing these cells is a highly involved process as they have to be cultured in the same way that drugs are produced: Under GMP (short for “Good Manufacturing Practice”) conditions. Typically, this does require using specialized lab equipment. Contaminations that might happen during “feeding” of the cells represent a constant threat in cell cultures: They can be a serious potential threat to the patient as well as render these very precious cells useless.

The hope is that the Braunschweig invention will streamline the process for culturing sensitive cells: The scientists who were working on this project have come up with a method for using bags like the ones commonly used in blood transfusions and IVs. At the IST, plasma flashes were used to modify the inner surfaces of the plastic bag in such a way that human cells are able to grow adherently inside the bags. The cells that were obtained from healthy subjects were made available by the Städtisches Klinikum; Dittmar and Lindenmaier at the HZI examined the actual stem cell cultures.

“In contrast to traditional cell culture containers, we don’t even have to open the bag in order to supply the cells with nutrients,” Werner Lindenmaier explains. “Instead, cells and the nutrient medium can be introduced into the bag using a special protocol called ‘sterile docking.’ This way, bacterial contamination essentially becomes a non-issue. The researchers are using the bags primarily for purposes of culturing certain types of blood cells, although the system has proved rather versatile: “Through slight modifications during the process of production we were able to adapt the bag system to other types of cells,” Kurt Dittmar says. “We already succeeded at culturing bone, cartilage, and even neural tissue stem cells inside the bag.”